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General

1. Read 1+  article / video from  "Additional Readings."

2. Share one additional outside resource (video, article, lesson, tutorial, etc.) that you believe might be useful to us as we create our engaging materials.

Posting Format:

1. Find the appropriate column

2. Add a Title

3. Follow the model:
What this is about: (2-3 sent.)
Read this if: (1-2 sent.)

4. Cite and link/upload

Tips:

1. To find and access the formatting features, you'll need to highlight some text within your post.

2. Create and account & log in to Padlet so your name is posted. (If you are not logged in to Padlet, your post will appear as "Anonymous" and I won't be able to assess your work. Please put your name at the bottom if you are not logged in.)

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by Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning

What this is about: This very short, but essential article, covers 4 main research based principles needed as a foundation for creating educational videos.
Read this if: you want a quick refresher on tips for designing quality videos for your students.

Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning. (n.d). Creating effective educational videos. https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/diy-video/effective-videos/

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Video has become an important component of many flipped, blended, and online classes, but ensuring that videos are helping students involves taking a deeper look at video design and production. The key to designing effective educational videos is to begin with clear instructional intentions and follow research-based design principles. Instructors should consider the four general principles that are explained below.

On this page:

Work from a storyboard.

A storyboard is an essential tool in video design. Begin with a storyboard to map out an outline of your text and visuals to: plan what you will say, outline your visual elements, describe how you will apply design principles, and to determine the sequence of material. This will save a lot of time during production. If you write a complete script, you will also have a transcript to support learners who may experience accessibility issues with the video format. Here's a sample storyboard template.

Work from a script.

A script for your educational video will help condense and organize your content. Adopt a conversational tone and practice reading the script aloud. Edit passages that prevent a smooth delivery. Keep in mind the rate of speech, aiming for about 130 words per minute. See Script Writing Best Practices.

Apply course design principles.

Is video the best option? When planning your course, consider whether a video is the best way for your students to learn the content. Students learn more effectively when they are actively involved in constructing their own meaning around information ( Brooks and Brooks, 1993), so before you embark on a video production effort, ask yourself if there are more active ways for your students to engage with the material.

What learning will the video support? Re-examine the learning objectives and what you want your students to achieve. What are your goals? Video can be used to introduce new content, for review, or to reinforce essential content that has been previously introduced. Consider whether you are using your video to deliver course facts and concepts, or to teach skills. Make the purpose of the video clear to help students focus their learning.

How will learning be reinforced? Provide students with opportunities to reinforce learning by linking the viewing of the video to activities such as short quizzes, reflection activities, or discussion posts.

Reduce cognitive processing demand.

To understand how people learn with video, let's consider the principle of multimedia learning. This is the assertion that humans learn more deeply from a combination of words (spoken text or printed text) and pictures (illustrations, charts, photos, animation, or video) than from words alone. Multimedia instruction is therefore defined as "presenting words and pictures that are intended to foster learning" (Mayer, 2009). The cognitive theory of multimedia learning makes three assumptions about how the mind works: there are two separate channels (auditory and visual) for processing information; channel capacity is very limited and can hold very little information for short periods of time; and that learning is an active process of filtering, selecting, organizing, and integrating information (see diagram below).

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2009)
Multimedia content that doesn't directly contribute to learning can overload and exceed the processing capacity of the cognitive system, this is known as cognitive overload (Sweller, 1988).

To support learning with video, you should be intentional about your design in order to reduce extraneous processing and to manage the essential processing of the material (Mayer and Moreno, 2003; Mayer, 2008). Cognitive psychologist, Richard Mayer proposes several principles to improve multimedia instruction through intentional design. Below is a selection of these principles that are easy to quickly implement in instructional videos.

Coherence principle - limit extraneous content. Learning is better when words, pictures, and sounds unrelated to the essential material are excluded rather than included. Keep your content simple, limiting your words and visual elements to only what is strictly necessary to achieve learning.

Segmenting principle - break down the content in your video. Learning is better when content is presented in learner-paced segments. Create multiple, short, single-concept videos of 6 minutes or less (Guo, et al, 2014) rather than one long one.

Contiguity principle - coordinate corresponding content. Learning is better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the screen (spatial contiguity) and when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously (temporal contiguity). For example, place printed words near corresponding parts of graphics to reduce need for visual scanning.

Signaling principle - provide cues for how to process the material. Learning is better when learners don't have to look for the essential material, but cues are used to direct their attention to the critical aspects of the content. Signal verbal material using an outline, headings, highlighting, and use pointer words (such as first, second, third on your slides. Signal visual material with arrows, flashing, spotlighting, and other annotations.

You can review all twelve principles in Applying the Science of Learning: Evidence Based Principles for the Design of Multimedia Instruction (Mayer, 2008).

Make videos engaging.

If videos are not engaging, students are less likely to watch the entire video and complete post-video activities. Here are some research-supported recommendations to help increase engagement (Guo, et al, 2014).

Make shorter videos. Segment videos into chunks shorter than 6 minutes. Shorter videos also allow you to incorporate short activities at crucial points for students to apply what they viewed. These shorter videos can also become units that you can move around, combine, or use independently.

Be yourself - make it personal. Videos produced with a more personal feel can be more engaging than highly-produced professional recordings. Speak quickly and in a conversational style with high enthusiasm, rather than a formal style. Introduce yourself and what the segment will cover at the beginning of each video. When speaking to the camera, maintain eye contact, as if your students are watching.

Include talking head video. Video that include visuals of the instructor talking with slides are more engaging than slides alone. Instructor presence is engaging for students, so try mixing visual content such as slides, graphics and screencasts with video of the instructor talking.

Add drawings and animations. Khan academy-style tablet drawing tutorials are more engaging than PowerPoint slides. The visual flow of animated text and graphics draw and keep the learner's attention for longer.

References

Brooks, J. G., & Brooks, M. G. (1993). In search of understanding: the case for constructivist classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Design principles for multimedia learning (Mayer). (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2017, from http://www.digitaledidactiek.be/modules/2-ontwerp/uitdieping/mayer/?lang=en .

Guo, P., Kim, J., & Rubin, R. How Video Production Affects Student Engagement: An Empirical Study of MOOC Videos, 2014.

Hazlett, C. (2015, July 22). How MOOC Video Production Affects Student Engagement. Retrieved September 15, 2017, from http://blog.edx.org/how-mooc-video-production-affects

Mayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction. American Psychologist, 63(8), 760-769.

Mayer, R. E. (2012). Multimedia learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43-52.

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257-285

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Video has become an important component of many flipped, blended, and online classes, but ensuring that videos are helping students involves taking a deeper look at video design and production. The key to designing effective educational videos is to begin with clear instructional intentions and follow research-based design principles.

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IALLT Webinar: Are discussion forums really interactive? Ideas for purposeful asynchronous communication

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IALLT Webinar: Are discussion forums really interactive? Ideas for purposeful asynchronous communication

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Presenter: Florencia Henshaw

What this is about: This one hour long webinar from IALLT shows how discussion boards can be used as a flexible asynchronous tool for assisting students with communicative tasks. Henshaw includes advice  and examples of great ideas that even early learners can use as well as ideas on how to curtail cheating.

Read this if: you are interested in creating discussion forums that do not rely on stilted quasi-conversations, but can instead be more interactive and/or game-like.

Henshaw, F. (2020). Are discussion forums really interactive? Ideas for purposeful asynchronous communication [Webinar]. The FLTMAG. https://fltmag.com/webinar-discussion-boards/

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As a service to the language learning and teaching community during COVID-19, the IALLT Board has made this webinar open to all. IALLT webinars, which happen about once a month, are open to all, and webinar archives are a member benefit.

Presenter: Florencia Henshaw

Description: Discussion boards are the quintessential tool for asynchronous communication in online environments. However, typical forum posts resemble individual writing assignments followed by an obligatory and oftentimes vague response component, involving "at least two classmates who don't have any replies yet." In this webinar, I propose a different way of approaching asynchronous communication assignments, which aligns more closely with our goal of helping students to develop communicative ability in the target language. I will share several examples and ideas for novice, intermediate, and advanced learners, as well as some tips to minimize cheating.
Presentation slides

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IALLT Webinar: Are discussion forums really interactive? Ideas for purposeful asynchronous communication - The FLTMAG

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As a service to the language learning and teaching community during COVID-19, the IALLT Board has made this webinar open to all. IALLT webinars, which happen about once a month, are open to all, and webinar archives are a member

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Finding and Creating Visuals for Your Class 

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Finding and Creating Visuals for Your Class 

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by Shannon Donnally Spasova (Quinn)

What this is about:  This article was authored by one of the creators of this course, Shannon Quinn. She includes a helpful list of websites where you can locate visuals for educational use and many super creative ideas for how to create some visuals yourself.

Read this if: you are tired of scouring the web for that image to only find out it costs a bundle or you can’t use it due to copyright issues.

Spasova, S. (2018, June 19). Finding and creating visuals for your class. The FLTMAG July 2018. https://fltmag.com/finding-and-creating-visuals/

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There are many reasons to use visuals in your classroom. They can help you stay in the target language. They can help you to create a context or a story for your students to be engaged in. They can make the target culture seem closer and more real. Visuals can help all students to connect to and remember things, and, let's face it, having visuals to accompany your lessons can just be fun!

However, maybe the pictures in the textbook aren't fun enough or specific enough for your students and your context, or you just have a great idea that you haven't seen anywhere before. What are the best tools to use to find or create your own visuals for your class? In the first part of this article, I will outline some of the best places to find images for use in your classroom. In the second part, I will introduce you to some tools to use to create visuals of your own, as well as show you some examples of how I have used these images in my classes.

FINDING VISUALS

When looking for photos that are free to use, I go first to (other good options are and ). The photos that come up at the top of the search results are for purchase, but the ones immediately below are available for use, and usually without any restrictions or need for attribution. You do not even need an account if you are satisfied with the smaller versions of the photos. For fairly standard objects and things that are not too specific, you are likely to find several choices here. You can also filter by image type, orientation, category, size, and color.

If you cannot find the image that you need on Pixabay, your next stop could be Google image search. The key is to use the search filters to find images that are available for reuse. Once you have typed in your search parameters and gotten results, click on "Tools" and "Usage rights" to find images that have been marked as available for reuse.

Some of the other filters are also helpful in finding the best image for your purpose. If your target culture has a search engine with similar filters, you might try it as well. Try both English and target language search terms. Many of the images that come out of these types of Google image searches will be from Wikimedia Commons (connected to Wikipedia), and Wikimedia Commons conveniently gives you the language that you need to properly attribute the image to its creator.

If the picture that you are searching for is quite specific to the target culture, you might have trouble finding an image that is marked as free for use. In this case, I have several suggestions.

If you have friends and acquaintances in the target culture, or former students who are studying abroad, you might enlist someone to take a picture for you. I have sometimes been able to allow students going on study abroad to take a camera with them on the condition that they share their pictures with me and let me use them in course materials. Sometimes I ask them to get certain shots if they are able. Keep a list of images that you want to get the next time you get the chance to spend time in the target culture. Also if you are involved in target-language social media groups, someone in the group might be willing to send you a picture of something and give you permission to use it in your classroom.

If you find a picture on the internet that you would like to use and do not have other alternatives for getting your own version, you can try contacting the maintainer of the website where it is found and ask permission. Very often people are happy to provide pictures for educational purposes. If you are unable to contact the original owner of the image, you can also rely on fair use. Though the guidelines for fair use can be confusing, in many cases you can make an argument for using the image if several of the following are true. Note that the more fair use factors you consider beforehand, the stronger your fair use argument is.

you are not using a large number of images from the same source,

you are not affecting the market value of a product,

you are using the image in a closed context like a classroom (not putting it out on the open internet),

your use of the image is transformative (you are making something new out of it, like a slideshow for your class).

CREATING YOUR OWN VISUALS

Sometimes your course materials would really benefit from something that only you can make yourself, and even people who are not very artistically gifted can create some really good-looking visuals with a little bit of assistance from some free tools. These visuals can be based on authentic sources but can be made to fit into a storyline or scenario that you want your students to imagine themselves in, and there are no associated copyright problems.

You will notice that the images are placed on top of the suitcase image, without any background color. When you search in Pixabay using filters, you can choose "Vector graphics", which will give you images that have a transparent background. You can tell that a background is transparent if it has a grey-and-white checkering behind it, as in this example:

Similarly, I wanted to create an activity in my lesson that had a single character traveling to various destinations. I only had one authentic plane ticket, so I used its format to create others.

Sometimes you can make small tweaks to existing visuals to fit your purposes. I was creating an activity where students had to "make" a recipe by dragging ingredients in the correct order to the borshch pot by listening to the names of the types of food. The pictures were all found on Pixabay.

After the beets were added, I wanted the "soup" to turn red, so I added a red oval over the pot, altering the original image slightly to fit my purpose. The bowl includes white dots to indicate the sour cream that is always added right before you eat (which also makes the soup turn pink)!

You can also combine authentic images with images found on Pixabay to create a scenario. I wanted to have my students practice how to load their Russian cell phone account with money, since the study abroad program would give them cell phones to use while on their program in Russia. I asked an instructor in our program who was going to be in Russia to take photos of the screens on the machine, the machine itself, and then combined those with pictures of a wallet, the phone, and different denominations of rubles to have students practice the steps to load up their account.

When creating visuals, as with any activities, as teachers we want to make sure we are keeping in mind a balance between authentic, yet understandable materials that are culturally relevant and relatable to our students. If you have other suggestions for great resources or ideas for creating visuals for your class, leave a message in the comments!

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Finding and Creating Visuals for Your Class - The FLTMAG

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There are many reasons to use visuals in your classroom. They can help you stay in the target language. They can help you to create a context or a story for your students to be engaged in. They can make the target culture seem closer and more real.

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Accessibility Essentials in Online Teaching 

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Accessibility Essentials in Online Teaching 

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by Caitlin Cornell

What this is about: This FLTMAG article discusses considerations Higher Ed teachers (specifically language teachers) should be aware of in order to better serve disabled students, although K-12 teachers will also find much to learn here. The author covers aspects of Universal Design for Learning and how this framework helps teachers be more proactive in making materials more accessible.

Read this if: you are ready to take some small steps to help you better design materials for more engaged learning or if you are wondering whether you have missed any important basic concepts in accessibility.

Cornell, C. (2020, June 8). Accessibility essentials in online language teaching. The FLTMAG July 2020. https://fltmag.com/accessibility-essentials-in-online-language-teaching/

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By Caitlin Cornell, Assistant Director, the Center for Language Teaching Advancement & Ph.D. student in Second Language Studies at Michigan State University
In response to the uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions of higher education are contemplating going fully online with their courses in the fall of 2020. Even if your institution isn't one of them, you are likely seeing an increased push for online course development. In this piece, I will outline some quick tips related to accessibility for disabled* students in online learning environments in higher education. (Whether or not K-12 schools will reopen-and what that will look like-is a different question entirely, but K-12 instructors who are considering some online instruction for the fall can also benefit from the suggestions I outline here). Many of the suggestions here are relevant to online learning in general, but I also inject commentary and examples specific to online learning.
*A note about language: my disabled friends and colleagues as well as disabled activists on Twitter have encouraged me to move toward "identity-first" language choices when describing folks who identify as having a disability. An alternative choice is "person-first" language (i.e., "students with disabilities"). Within the disabled community, this is a very political, personal, and individual choice; not everyone chooses the same terminology to describe themselves. Whenever possible, I defer to individuals' choices on the matter, not unlike honoring individuals' pronouns (e.g., I use the pronouns she/her/hers).
None of us would disagree that accessibility is important and something all educators should be striving for. Where accessibility becomes a bit tricky: often, educators (especially those who are not on the disability spectrum themselves) don't know what accessibility should look like, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the pressure to aim for perfection. Ideally, we would like all content and interactions to be totally accessible all of the time. In reality, nothing is ever "done" in accessibility: even if you make your course accessible for your current student group, you will inevitably face changes down the road because students are unique and each one has a different set of unique concerns. Compounding the complexity, it's not uncommon for educators to feel they don't have the time or the resources or support to achieve that mythical accessibility perfection. It's ok to start with the basics and take steps toward greater accessibility to signal to your students your willingness to grow and improve for their success.

One framework that can help you cover a lot of (but not all) bases all at once is Universal Design for Learning (UDL) . I think of UDL as a proactive approach to accessibility. Instead of just waiting for accommodation requests to come through after a course has already been designed and rolled out, UDL encourages educators to anticipate the greatest diversity of needs and challenges from the very start. For example, if you think in advance about how a disabled learner who uses screen reader technology will interact with your syllabus, you might think to add heading styles to make the document more navigable. By making some early decisions in which you consider the needs of the widest audience possible, you might be able to (a) make the content friendlier to everyone ( likes the easy navigation of heading styles, not just screen reader users), but also (b) cut down on some retroactive accommodation requests in the long term because some of your course elements are already more accessible. An important note about UDL: it is not a silver bullet, one-size-fits-all solution. It's very likely that in using UDL principles, you will generally cut down on accommodations requests over time because you are preventatively eliminating some barriers, but you should not expect to eliminate all retroactive work to make your course as accessible as possible. This work is never done. UDL is simply a very useful tool among many steps we can take in order to improve accessibility for disabled students.

First, we need to talk about learning outcomes. The earlier in your design process you can infuse some purposeful thinking about accessibility concerns, the better and the easier for you to address the rest of my suggestions to follow in this article. Is there any flexibility inherent in those outcomes that you can capitalize on? When you examine your outcomes (maybe they're ones you're stuck with that someone else created for you), is there anything that stands out as possibly challenging for disabled language learners? Are your learning outcomes measurable in a way that is fair for disabled students?

Second, I would like to explore some measures that will increase the overall accessibility of the content you provide to students. It's important to ask yourself students are accessing your course content. In second language acquisition, we talk a lot about "input" and what it takes for students to be able to process it. It's vital to provide multimodal access to input and content wherever possible. The most salient example for the importance of multiple modes is addressing the concerns of language learners with physical disabilities who are blind or Deaf or hard-of-hearing: any visuals you use should also be described aurally and all videos should be accompanied by captions or subtitles. This is certainly reason enough to ensure multimodal access, but additionally these augments can be good for other students as well. Many students of various learning preferences report that captions and subtitles are helpful, and adjusting font sizes, styles, and contrast can very quickly improve readability for a variety of vision concerns, including such everyday scenarios as too much glare on a screen on a sunny day. It's also important to limit the amount of content learners have to process at a given time (the same goes for input). Keeping things bite-sized is helpful for most students, but especially crucial for learners who are not able to process via more than one mode at a time (or at all, e.g., blind students may rely on aural or tactile processing) or those with processing disorders or whose working memory is easily taxed. Offering students explicit strategies, like checklists, can also cast a wide net to address an array of unique student challenges.

Third, I would like to outline things you can do in your task and activity design in order to make interaction with course concepts more accessible to a wider range of students. There are great tools that can facilitate both synchronous and asynchronous interaction online. But, it's important to remember that you design tasks, activities, and interactions within those tools is arguably more important than choosing which tool to use. Remember that, as long as you're addressing your learning outcomes, you probably have a lot of freedom in how you design a task or activity. A colleague of mine once gave an example of the happy evolution of his discussion boards in D2L (Desire 2 Learn learning management system). Originally, his discussion questions were based on cognitively oriented outcomes like "remember" and "explain" on Bloom's taxonomy (e.g., "Summarize the second language theories from the last module we read"). After the prompts were reworked to be more affectively oriented and application-based (e.g., "If you had $100, which language learning app would you buy for your mother and why?"), he saw a significant uptick in student engagement, and students reported higher impact from the discussion threads as contributing to their learning in the course. An early design decision, like choosing an orientation for discussion prompts, can shape the way students interact with a given tool, even within the tool's perceived parameters of functionality: the discussion boards were being used made all the difference.

Fourth, let's talk about some other golden rules that are important to forefront in our teaching in online learning spaces. These concepts are "best practices" for online teaching generally, but they can really make or break an online learning experience for disabled language learners especially. These "best practices" are perhaps even more important to strive for during a global pandemic which produces stress and uncertainty for students who present incredible diversity and unique needs.

Consistency

Specialists in online learning will tell you how important it is to be consistent with organization, formatting, directions, and deadlines. The concept of consistency is imperative for students with processing disorders, who may find reading, listening, or navigating to online materials less fatiguing if there is an overarching organization guiding them. Many disabled learners find being able to rely on consistent deadlines (e.g., assignments are always due on Fridays) less taxing on their working memory, which may already be overburdened.

Flexibility

It's important to be flexible, not only specifically related to accessibility, but also because online work is more work for students and instructors alike and can be a significant adjustment even under normal (non-pandemic) educational circumstances. It is not hard to imagine that learners with psychological disabilities could be having a particularly tough time adjusting.

On a macro level, you can build in flexibility explicitly via your design choices. One way to offer structural flexibility is to choose asynchronous delivery for your course or at least some of its components. On Twitter, Disabled activists and online pedagogy scholars alike are calling for asynchronous design because it maximizes flexibility for everyone. For example, think of the student during the transition to remote learning during the second half of the spring 2020 semester who was sharing electronic resources and hardware with a whole family of siblings, etc., each with their own schooling-at-home regimen to schedule around. Think of the instructor who was trying teaching from home with little children underfoot. Think about the unexpected Internet outages, and students with jobs deemed "essential" during this pandemic. Think of the Deaf or hard-of-hearing student who finds it difficult to read lips via virtual meetings. We language educators may balk at the idea of fully asynchronous language courses because we feel that the spontaneous contact, real-time language exposure, and interactive practice language learners get from face-to-face courses (that we understand to be crucial in oral language development in particular) will be irreplicable in-especially asynchronous-online environments, and thus we will be doing our language students a huge disservice. This may be true in the most ideal of language teaching situations, but as Chris Long, the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University recently penned in a letter to the campus community , " it would be unjust to expect business as usual." For better or worse, a global pandemic is an opportunity to rethink some of our long-held conceptions about what language learning should look like. There was another piece in this July issue of that weighed the costs and benefits of synchronous v. asynchronous design choices (not specific to accessibility) that you might find helpful as you make decisions for your own course.

Offering students choices and alternatives is another way to infuse some overt structural flexibility into your course. Those of you who engage in differentiated instruction in your face-to-face courses may already have experience with some of the following suggestions. Giving students alternative options in terms of the media they use to access or complete tasks or activities can significantly reduce frustration levels, make participation more equitable (e.g., the student who does not have a computer can use their phone instead), and very likely boost interest, motivation, and engagement in the task. I work hard to channel the "multiple means" mantra of Universal Design for Learning: I try to give students a choice in how they demonstrate to me their understanding of learning outcomes . I recently taught a seminar course in which I implemented a system of alternative assessment . In this course, students were required to submit critical responses to weekly readings. The responses needed to address all the criteria outlined on the assignment rubric, but what the critical response looked like was up to students completely. In lieu of a traditional written essay-type response, some students opted to record interviews with their families as they discussed topics from our readings or produce art pieces centered around the themes of the readings. The creativity of their work astounded me, and I felt a high level of student engagement. I recognize that for certain assessments this approach may not be feasible. It could be that there are three sections of German 101 that all have the same summative exam at the end of the course that has been well-vetted by the department in terms of reliability and validity, and there is no wiggle room for instructors to alter that on an individual basis. In that case, there might be other areas of the course where students could employ some autonomous choice.

On a micro level, offer flexibility on an individual basis whenever possible. Everyone needs to be given a little grace during this uncertain and emotionally taxing time. Specifically, disabled students may have less support and more chaos to contend with during COVID-19 (for example, they may have much less contact with their disability resource centers right now).

When in doubt, return to your learning outcomes. Is it true that you need to do things as you have always done them in order for students to achieve success in the outcomes? For example, if your course features a listening proficiency learning outcome, you might ask yourself whether it is valid to assess a hard-of-hearing student's achievement of that listening outcome via an assessment featuring an audio-only listening sample. In order to address the fairness of that assessment scenario, you might consider (depending on how the student reports engaging in communication in their home language) offering a video clip which would allow for lip-reading and other nonverbal cues that the student might rely on in their life outside of their foreign language study.

Finally, give yourself time to make habits of some of these suggestions, particularly the ones that seem simpler for you to wrap your head around. Adopting some of these things from the get-go can relatively quickly make some meaningful changes to your teaching practice. Revisit your learning outcomes and best practices to find room for flexibility and "multiple means." You can add in more later, since the work is never done.

Click on each category to see more details.

(Many of these suggestions are also highlighted in this handy checklist compiled by Michigan State University's Web Accessibility team )

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Accessibility Essentials in Online Language Teaching - The FLTMAG

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By Caitlin Cornell, Assistant Director, the Center for Language Teaching Advancement & Ph.D. student in Second Language Studies at Michigan State University In response to the uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions of higher education are contemplating going

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Navigating the Labyrinth of Copyright in Language Teaching Materials 

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Navigating the Labyrinth of Copyright in Language Teaching Materials 

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by Shannon Donnally Spasova (Quinn) and Julie Evershed

What this is about: This interactive  (H5P) asynchronous webinar on copyright includes a multitude of learning moments. Using audio, video, and mini quizzes we learn the definition of copyright, uses of copyright for many different formats, as well as resources to locate print, images, video, audio for educational purposes in our materials development.

Watch this if: you have some idea about copyright, but are not fully confident in all the little rules, and if you want to use 40 minutes very wisely! This seminar is for you!

Spasova, S. & Evershed, J. (2020). Asynchronous webinar: Navigating the labyrinth of copyright in language teaching materials [Webinar]. The FLTMAG. https://fltmag.com/asynchronous-webinar-navigating-the-labyrinth-of-copyright-in-language-teaching-materials/

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FLTMAG Asynchronous Webinar about Copyright

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What this is about:  This Ted Talk is about how visuals powerfully get the attention of people. Furthermore, it presents the concept of using images to lead people to do things.
Read this if :  you believe visuals are a great tool to enhance your classes and keep your students engaged and motivated.

Regiane Lima de Paula
Portuguese Instructor - MSU

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Our world is more visual than ever before. Millions of images created daily are steering elections, changing lives and crashing servers. David Hooker, lead creative at presentation platform Prezi, argues that this situation makes visual literacy a key life skill to cultivate. “Images are too important to outsource to others,” he says. “And too powerful to consume without due care and attention.”

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Animating your Instruction: Using Comics and Graphic Novels in the English language Classroom

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Animating your Instruction: Using Comics and Graphic Novels in the English language Classroom

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What this is about: This interesting and informative one-hour webinar presents the reasons for using comic books/ graphic novels in language teaching, the benefits and challenges of using these resources in class and some possible solutions. More importantly, it suggests some activities with specific instructions to use comic books/ graphic novels to teach different language skills.
Read this if: You are interested in using comic books/ graphic novels or just images/pictures in creating your learning materials.

https://youtu.be/BHCLIVudEFw

Zoe (MSU)

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0:00 / 1:02:18•Watch full video

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AE Live 5.2: Animating Your Instruction: Using Comics & Graphic Novels in the EFL Classroom

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This is an article on how to get students to create video for class projects.  The author teaches them the basics of filmmaking, including kinds of shots, angles, lighting, etc., in a course on Spanish-language cinema, and has the students create a project in the second half of the term.  This reminded me of the thread on POV camera work for course videos.

Read this if...you want to teach courses on the cinema of a given language or country, and have students do short film projects. Also if you want to have students create short, basic films for proficiency-oriented courses.

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For some six years, I have regularly taught a 300-level film analysis course in Spanish at Indiana University Bloomington. I structure the course in a way that the first half of the course is devoted to training students' eyes and ears to identify formal elements (framing, camera movements, lenses, mise-en-scène, and editing), explicate a scene or film, and articulate their ideas verbally and in writing. I pair a film with a formal term that is salient in a particular Spanish-language movie, such as framing in ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa! / Let's Go with Pancho Villa! (Fernando de Fuentes, 1936), camera movement in (Guillermo del Toro, 1993), and set design in Carne trémula / (Pedro Almodóvar, 1997). The second half of the course is devoted to engaging with select methodologies or theories to films from Latin American countries or Spain. For example, we use select ideas from film genre studies (e.g., iconography and genre communities) to assess Sólo con tu pareja (Alfonso Cuarón, 1991); La niña santa / The Holy Girl (Lucrecia Martel, 2004) frames a discussion of the notion of gender and gaze in cinema; and Carlos Saura's Cría cuervos (1976) serves as a means by which to discuss allegory in cinema as a strategy for evading government censorship. Originally, the course culminated in a final paper in which students had the choice of collaborating in pairs to storyboard a scenario I provided and to write an accompanying short paper in which they explained their choices. Though the storyboard provided a means for students to apply ideas and concepts, since the fall 2018 semester I have substituted the storyboard for a collaborative production consisting of a short film made with a smartphone and inexpensive editing software. Albeit not without its hiccups, the cellphone cinema project acts as a springboard for larger endeavors that benefit the students intellectually and professionally and, potentially, my home department, the university and broader physical and virtual communities.

My ambitions to create a cellphone cinema project emerged from professional endeavors, namely writing about extremely low-budget horror cinema from Argentina in which filmmakers and crew make do with little resources. In addition, there were various signposts that were equally inspiring, such as seeing movies made exclusively with cell phones (i.e., , ). Moreover, having small children, I would browse books in featured sections of our local library and would encounter instructional guides for kids about making short films with cell phones. The tools and models were out there for my students to make a film; however, for me it was a question of time to design a curriculum for a collaborative cellphone movie that would make the project feasible within a 15-week course that was largely devoted to film criticism.

I was fortunate to receive a Summer Instructional Development Fellowship from the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at my university, and I spent about 8 weeks designing a curriculum, during which I consulted cellphone cinema guides, YouTube videos, and determined the incremental progression of the project during the course. The results were applied for the first time during the fall 2018 semester.

The cellphone movie begins with the second class of the semester when we discuss framing. I teach the entire course in Spanish, and students are expected to converse exclusively in Spanish as well. In addition to reading about framing and learning the terms in Spanish, students organize themselves into pairs and take pictures with their phones using different distances, heights, and angles. One group exchanges their phone with another, and the other pair of students describe the framing (again, distance, height, angle). Students do the same with camera movements: tilt, pan, travelling shots, etc. Prior to the activities with camera movements, I ask that students purchase Filmic Pro for $15, an app that features an array of ways to manipulate image and sound that surpasses the typical features on a smartphone camera. Over the course of three semesters using the cellphone cinema project, there were usually one to three students who preferred not to spend the money, although the app is the only cost for materials for the entire course. I am fine with those students' choice to not purchase the app since they likely work with peers who did have Filmic Pro when they collaborate on the final project.

Students refrain from any practical exercise for mise-en-scène or sound. Indeed, we study mise-en-scène and sound in particular movies. However, the manipulation of sound remains beyond me, and, in the case of the mise-en-scène, I prefer to refrain from bringing in props and costumes or asking students to do so. With lenses, the students experiment with filming with different clip-on lenses that I purchased online, which they are welcome to use during the actual making of their own collaborative film. For continuity editing, students are organized into groups of three, and each person films a simple conversation between their two peers. Each student adheres to basic tenets of continuity editing: establishing shot; shot-reverse shot; 180-degree and 30-degree rules; eyeline matches; reestablishing shot. In addition, each student films the same conversation in which there is a break with continuity editing, such as inserting an establishing shot in the middle or the end of the scene, inserting a jump cut, or inserting an image that has nothing to do with the conversation. To edit the two scenes, each student uploads the footage onto their laptop to iMovie or Adobe Premiere, the latter of which is free through my university. Though Filmic Pro allows for some in-camera editing, iMovie and Adobe Premiere both allow students to better visualize cutting images and inserting transitions, such as fade-ins and dissolves, and provides the students with crucial practice.

Following the first half of the semester, students organize themselves into groups of four. I want students to experience the power dynamics that can go into making a collaborative movie. Akin to the first half of the semester, in the latter half I spread out each component of the collaborative film project so that students who are new to cellphone cinema technology grow into the ideas at a comfortable pace in lieu of bombarding them with information during, say, a single-week stint. Moreover, by compartmentalizing the steps for making the cellphone movie, we could continue to watch movies and discuss film theories as they relate to films from Latin American countries and Spain.

The components of the cellphone film project are: (1) choosing a scenario; (2) creating an individual storyboard; (3) creating a collective storyboard for the group, in which group members can elect to use a single member's storyboard or combine various ones; (4) deciding which film theories to use in their movie; (5) dividing the labor of filmmaking equally among group members; (6) filming and editing the movie; (7) writing a two- or three-page group report in Spanish about the film; (8) uploading the movie to YouTube and showing the movie in class to their peers; (9) showing the movie at a cellphone film festival on campus.

While students were able to come up with their own scenarios, I provide students with 5 suggested ones that they can adapt. Those scenarios are:

A brief documentary (including a mockumentary) about a topic;

A scene of a conversation between friends at a restaurant or café;

A biographical scene about a real or fictitious person or animal;

A scene from a dinner party or lunch;

A brief scene in which someone enters a room or apartment and finds ... (a party, a friend, a body, etc.)

While my intention with the suggested scenarios is for students to film merely a scene with Spanish-language dialogue, all the groups were intent on filming a short movie with a complete narrative featuring a conclusion. Though students are required to use the target language in class and in any films with dialogue or intertitles, I have no way of ensuring that students converse in Spanish when they make the movie outside of class. Students are not required to include any cultural content from a Spanish-speaking culture; however, in some instances, a student who either studied abroad in a particular country or is originally from Spain or a Latin American country has included a prop or slang from a specific culture.

After selecting a scenario, each student is tasked with creating a storyboard for which they received a homework grade. I provide feedback to students about the storyboards regarding a range of items (lighting, framing, lenses, camera movements) to ensure that the storyboard has details. Students then meet with their fellow group members in order to create a collective storyboard for the film project. Again, I provide feedback. In creating both individual and collective storyboards, I task students with incorporating a concept or theory that we discuss in our course in their films. Though students wrote assignments and papers in which they applied film theory, the storyboards were an additional instance in which they had to bridge theory and practice. To facilitate the inclusion of theories and concepts in the storyboards (and eventually the films themselves), I provide a list:

Continuity editing

Relational montage

(Vsevolod Pudovkin)

Iconography particular to a film genre

Internal focalization

Genre renovation (à la some films directed by Pedro Almodóvar)

An identitarian gaze (male, female, queer, colonial)

Inclusion of the Kuleshov effect

Dialectical montage (Sergei Eisenstein)

A modality of documentary cinema (Bill Nichols)

The theories and concepts are placed into categories, and the groups must select one from each category. Following the first semester in which students produced collaborative films as a final project, I created the categories because many groups were selecting the same concepts: continuity editing; iconography; and a modality of documentary cinema. Moreover, students appeared to use the concepts after creating a storyboard and/or film rather than during the planning of a short movie or storyboard.

Following the creation of a group storyboard, students and I discuss a division of labor for the project. During the initial semester of the cellphone film project, I suggested that students divide the labor among four people as follows: (1) one person ensures that the group adheres to the storyboard or leads discussions about changes to the storyboard; (2) someone films the scene; (3) someone edits the movie; (4) one person writes the paper that is based on the film. In addition to the regular course evaluation, I use an evaluation in which students could specifically comment on their experience with the film. With the initial attempt of having students make collaborative cellphone films, at least two students from two different groups expressed frustration about the time required to edit the movie, and how this created a disparity in work among group members. With subsequent semesters, I maintain the aforementioned division of labor, but implore students to share the editing.

The resulting films have been generally outstanding. To be sure, our course does not focus on film production. However, students show a deeper understanding of film theories concepts by putting them into practice while using Spanish. To date, the films have ranged from spoofs on telenovelas , horror, romantic comedies, and detective films. In addition, students have made a number of mockumentaries, which have dealt playfully with topics, such as electric scooters, studying at a bar in lieu of a library, and the day in the life of a pet. One film, El camino: estoy caminando (Casey DeBruyn, Ray Martinez, Staphany Santana, and Bart Upton, 2019), is shown below , and exemplifies some of the work students do. Here, the students use modalities of documentary cinema, internal focalization with a subjective shot, and genre renovation.

Upon completing their films, the groups have to write a paper in Spanish in which they explain how the theories or concepts manifest themselves in their film. Students complete their films during the penultimate week of the semester, upload the films to YouTube, and send me a link. We then spend a class period watching the students' films and conversing about the experience in Spanish. The film project accounts for thirty percent of the students' final grade. Sixty percent of the grade of the final project is determined by the film, and forty percent by the paper. In addition to the final project, students take a final exam that is not comprehensive. During the initial semester, the collaborative film was the sole final activity for students. However, given the quality of discussions about materials in the latter half of the semester, I felt that students did not adequately engage with the readings and/or films. It was as if because they would not be held accountable for knowing the materials in the latter of the semester, not much effort was devoted to those materials. In turn, I decided that a short final exam would ensure that the students continued to read and watch the films.

While not without its hiccups, I feel that the collaborative film project is a success in various ways. Student evaluations are generally positive. One commented, "I have a newfound appreciation and understanding for filmmaking. I think this project is pretty essential to our understanding of the formal elements of film." Another student wrote, "Though difficult at times, I learned the importance of editing." One of my initial objectives for creating the cellphone cinema project was to equip students with practical skills without minimizing the intellectual rigor or the subject matter. One student, who majored in Spanish, Sociology, and Political Science, got a job as the video director for a political party in Indiana. After two consecutive semesters during which students produced about twelve movies total ranging from three to five minutes, I organized a cellphone film festival on campus (see flyer below), which featured the twelve films made by students during the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters. The event was well attended, and students were genuinely proud of themselves. While difficult to gauge, the film festival doubled as a way to attract majors and minors to the Spanish-language program. There is, of course, potential to expand the cellphone cinema festival to include other language programs, and, thus, a "Tower of Babel" of cellphone films.

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Hazlo-tú-mismx / Do-It Yourself: Collaborative Cellphone Filmmaking in Undergraduate Spanish Courses - The FLTMAG

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By Jonathan Risner, Associate Professor, Indiana University Bloomington For some six years, I have regularly taught a 300-level film analysis course in Spanish at Indiana University Bloomington. I structure the course in a way that the first half of the

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Assessing Outside the Box: the Open Format Assignment

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Assessing Outside the Box: the Open Format Assignment

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By Caitlin Cornell and Megan Dean, Michigan State University

What this is about: The article introduces an interesting method of assessment (either in online or in-person classes) in which students can use digital technologies and critical thinking to reflect on their understanding of the subject. It seems to open a better connection and interactions between learners and the knowledge of the course, besides boosting their motivation in learning.

Read this if: you are interested in an effective and engaging assessment for your class.

Cornell, C. & Dean, M. (2021, September 3). Assessing Outside the Box: the Open Format Assignment. The FLTMAG September 2021.
https://fltmag.com/assessment-open-format/

Trang Ho (MSU)

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The COVID-19 pandemic has demanded unprecedented innovation and adaptation from instructors and students alike. Online learning has required many students to learn how to use new-to-them digital technologies like video editing, audio recording, and virtual presentation software. As we move back into more traditional classrooms, instructors may wish to incorporate students' newly-honed digital abilities into their pedagogy. At the same time, we may have concerns about instructor investment in learning and teaching new technologies and about accessibility for students with disabilities, different learning styles, or varying access to resources.

In this article, we introduce a type of assignment that invites student use of digital technologies and critical thinking about the value of different modes of communication: open format assignments. An open format assignment works for online teaching and in-person courses and requires minimal instructor investment in teaching new technologies to students. Leaving the format of an assignment open to student choice has benefits for diverse student populations, including disabled students, and encourages student creativity and autonomy. The key to an open format assignment is a rubric which enables fair assessment across formats and emphasizes in-depth critical engagement with course concepts.

In what follows, we discuss our use of open format assignments in two undergraduate learning contexts: an honors option mini-course on race, language, and disability, and in various philosophy courses. We offer narrative accounts detailing the context and rationale for our use of open format assignments, outlining assignment learning goals and rubric design, and noting key challenges and limitations. We suggest that these assignments can be easily adapted to a variety of learning contexts, and in the final section of the article we discuss the possibilities of incorporating open format in world language learning assignments.

Case #1: Open Format Critical Reflections in a 5-week Race, Language, and Disability Course

In the Spring of 2020, I (Caitlin) developed and taught a 5-week mini-course as an honors component (henceforth "course") for a section of the Immigrants, Minorities, and American Pluralism course at Michigan State University. I asked the 12 students who signed up for the honors component to reflect critically on the language that American academia, society, and media use to shape current discourse about disability and race, via both traditional disabilities studies as well as Critical Disability Theory and DisCrit (Disability Critical Race Theory).

I designed the course (pre-pandemic) to be maximally accessible and minimally anxiety-inducing, placing a strong emphasis on offering students choice in my course assessment. Their engagement with the ideas was paramount to me, regardless of format, and I wanted to see what students could create when given the freedom to choose. I also wondered if educators always need the level of specific control over student output that we often think we do.

On March 11, 2020, the morning after my first session of the course, the university announced the emergency transition of all face-to-face courses to remote delivery. The remaining four sessions of my course were held virtually, via Zoom. In the end, the purposeful design choices I made pre-pandemic became a saving grace during a tumultuous and uncertain time. I already understood that offering multiple modes for students to showcase their learning is one way of addressing accessibility (see, for example, Universal Design for Learning ) and fostering more inclusive learning environments, but I only realized once the course had already begun the crucial flexibility that open format assessment would afford students during a global pandemic.

Assessment for the course comprised 4 critical reflections based on course readings and class discussion. I not only gave students the choice to complete any 4 reflections from 5 weeks of topics (i.e., they had one chance to not address one topic that was of less interest to them), but they were also able to choose how to design their reflections. Again, it was connection-making that was important to me, rather than format. Even if I had required traditional essays, I would not have prioritized formal writing skills in my evaluation of them. In order to make my assessment goals explicit for students, I included in the syllabus a paragraph explaining my motivations for infusing open format choice in the assignments as well as links to some general resources (e.g., TopHat Blog on Higher Ed Assessment Strategies ) illustrating what "alternative" assessment (open format assignments are one type) can look like.

I developed a "universal" (my term) rubric to assess learning outcomes within the reflections. I was curious about its efficacy as a tool for evaluating student learning. The rubric was universal in two senses: (a) I used the same rubric for every reflection since each critical reflection served the same learning outcomes and (b) the rubric was bare of any binding information regarding mode, medium, design, or format of the reflections (I left the format of the reflections completely up to students).

Critical Reflection Rubric:

Please address these criteria in your critical reflections that are based on the weekly course readings. Remember, the your work takes is up to you. If you prefer to have more structure or guidance beyond this rubric, just ask!

Demonstrable understanding of concepts from the reading

Depth of reflection

Response demonstrates an in-depth reflection on, and personalization of, the theories, concepts, and/or strategies presented in the course materials to date. Viewpoints and interpretations are insightful and well supported. Clear, detailed examples are provided, as applicable.

Clarity/explicitness of the medium

(e.g., the symbolism of art pieces may need to be accompanied by some commentary by the artist in order to convey connections between the art and the reading to the instructor.)

Strengths of your critical reflection:

Suggestions for growth in your critical reflection:
Elements of this rubric were inspired by or adapted from the following resources: http://studentassessment.ucalgaryblogs.ca/files/2017/06/Reflection-Rubric.pdf https://brocku.ca/pedagogical-innovation/wp-content/uploads/sites/53/Critical-Reflection-Rubric.pdf http://carla.umn.edu/assessment/vac/improvement/p_6.html?sfns=mo
In your reflection, consider addressing the following elements:

1. What are the various authors' perspective(s) relative to this week's topic(s)?

2. In what ways do the authors' perspectives contribute to general discourse on this topic in academia, society, or the media?

3. If you were to explain the key concepts from this week's topics/readings/media to a family member at a barbecue, what do you think you would include in a 30-second summary?

4. What connections can you make from any of this week's readings/media to your own experience? In other words, what did any particular reading/media/concept mean to you personally, and why do you think it had that effect on you?

5. What connections can you make from any of this week's readings/media to your own discipline or academic interests?

Though I was inspired by its potential benefits, I wasn't sure how open format assessment would manifest in reality. My primary concern was how much direction I should give students. On one hand, I didn't want to color students' formatting choices via the examples I gave them as a reference, but I also didn't want them to struggle with too blank of a slate. I wanted to stimulate without controlling. I included in the syllabus only brief descriptions of what form critical reflections might take: "You choose the vehicle or manifestation of your work. For example, an essay, a video, artwork, a presentation, etc."

I was also concerned about explicitness in students' work that weren't text-based (like art or other visual representations, for example). In the case of artwork, for example, I warned students to be prepared to help me interpret their artistic metaphor with additional explanation if necessary. I chose to operate under the assumption that any lack of understanding was my own creative limitation, not related to the students' output. I resolved that I would allow students to explain their intentions and interpretations casually, perhaps via virtual office hours; I did not require text-based accompaniment of visual representations so as not to create more work for students.

Another consideration was how to handle student work done in tactile modalities, a challenge resulting mainly from incorporating open format assignments during a pandemic in which students would be unable to deliver assignments to me physically. We discussed that in the case of any such work they could take a photo of it and send that to me, instead of presenting me with the object itself. One student made use of PowerPoint to create a digital collage (but whether that was in response to pandemic limitations or just her natural use of technology for creativity, I don't know for sure). Just about any other mode or format could be achieved electronically.

The purposefully devised flexibility of my open format assignments led to extreme creativity and high engagement with course topics. While most students chose to write traditional essays, some embraced the freedom to choose a medium that spoke to them. Some students chose to work with a different medium for each reflection, making use of their freedom of choice over and over again. Among my favorite submissions were: a poignant art installation (a student video-recorded her sketch pad while she simultaneously sketched and narrated her visual connections to course topics), and an interview about course topics by a student of their family members after they had moved home from campus during the pandemic.

After the course, I made available to students a voluntary course evaluation survey. Here are highlights of their qualitative responses that they allowed me to share:
At first I leaned into my comforts, but as the course went on and I learned more I thought the alternative assessment allowed me to try some new things that actually made me dive into the course content and grow my understanding. I like freedom in my classes, it communicates to me my advisor is treating me like an adult who can adequately decide my output of work. I felt a lot better once you gave more explanation on what you were looking for. It was helpful to know that we had total freedom as long as we followed the requirements on the rubric. I liked the idea of having total freedom, but I would've liked some examples to see at the beginning of the course. I just wasn't totally sure at first how to produce a reflection with all of the requirements and I think it would've been cool to see how other people did it.
In the future, based on the latter two student comments above, I will showcase examples that former students have consented to share, even at the risk of influencing students' creativity somewhat.

Case #2: Open Format Assessment in Undergraduate Philosophy Courses

I (Megan) started using open format assignments in my undergraduate philosophy teaching at Georgetown University in 2016. Since then, I have used them as final assignments in various undergraduate courses, including Bioethics and Disability, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of the Body, Ethics of Health Care, and Philosophical Issues of Feminism. These courses have varied in size and level, from small upper-year seminars at Hamilton College to 100-person lecture courses requiring no prerequisites at Michigan State University.

The majority of my undergraduate teaching has been to non-philosophy majors. For example, my courses on health care ethics attract students going into the health professions and my recent Philosophical Issues of Feminism course attracted many students majoring in women's and gender studies. So rather than focusing on formal philosophical argumentation, I aim to help students build up a "toolbox" of philosophical concepts, theories, and approaches that they can use to analyze and evaluate real-life experiences. The open format assignment is an opportunity to demonstrate in-depth understanding of a particular philosophical "tool," to reflect on how it may be useful and to whom, and to practice articulating philosophical insights in accessible and engaging ways. While I developed the assignment with non-majors in mind, these skills are also valuable for philosophy majors interested in public philosophy or interdisciplinary work. And because students can choose to write a traditional philosophical essay, majors who wish to demonstrate and develop their essay writing skills can do so within the confines of the assignment.

The most recent iteration of the assignment was used in Spring 2021's Ethics of Health Care, a 100-person lecture course with a teaching assistant, and Philosophical Issues of Feminism, a 35-person seminar-style course, at Michigan State University. Both courses were taught online due to the pandemic. The assignment was worth a total of 20% of the final grade: 5% for a proposal, and 15% for the final product.

The central task of the assignment is for students to demonstrate in-depth understanding and critical engagement with concepts from one or more course texts. The specific topic of the assignment is left open; students may choose any concept, theory, or text from the course syllabus. They are encouraged to choose a topic that will be useful or interesting to others, and asked to identify this potential audience and consider how to effectively package the ideas to reach them. They are not required to actually attempt to reach this audience, but considering how to do so is a useful heuristic for thinking about the pros and cons of different formats.

Students can choose any format they wish to achieve this task. Example formats such as slide presentation with voiceover, podcast, video, op-ed, and website are provided in the assignment instructions, but students may propose alternatives. I have received a wide variety of creative formats, including short animated videos, infographics, interactive websites, TikTok video series, comic strips, photo essays, visual art, and short pieces of fiction. I encourage students to think about which formats will enable them to get their ideas across in a clear and engaging way and how to make effective use of their chosen format. For example, students who choose slide presentations should think about how to use images and graphics to help them get their ideas across rather than just relying on text or voice-over. Students who choose traditional essays are encouraged to take advantage of the depth and detail that the format allows for.

I do not provide explicit instruction on how to use different formats or necessary technologies. It is up to students to learn the technology they want to use if they are not already familiar. However, I do provide extensive resources to students to support this. I liaise with university librarians to provide resource guides with links to online tutorials and how-tos for common formats. When possible, I have a librarian visit class to discuss online and on-campus resources with students-such as borrowable recording equipment or editing software-and, when feasible, to offer one-on-one support.

Students are required to submit their projects electronically through the course platform. Where appropriate, links to externally-hosted content can be submitted instead of files; for instance, videos can be uploaded to MSU's Kaltura Mediaspace or Youtube and podcast files to Soundcloud. In the past I have also accepted physical versions of posters or other project formats, but the online submission is more streamlined and enables easier evaluation.

To encourage students to get the projects started in advance and to head off common problems, I require a proposal about a month prior to the project due date. Students must name and briefly describe their chosen topic, relevant course materials, and the intended audience for their work. They must identify their chosen format and explain why it would be an effective means for reaching that audience. The proposal also asks if the student will need help with their chosen format, which is an opportunity to provide further resources if needed and/or to encourage students to select a format that will be feasible given their access to technology and the time they have to dedicate to the project.

I give personalized feedback on the proposals, and students are required to respond to this feedback via email or in a meeting. Common issues that can be addressed at this stage include overly broad or ambitious topics, inappropriate length or size of project, or basic misunderstandings of the chosen topic. The proposal process is time-consuming, but it reduces final grading time by improving the quality of the projects overall and helps students feel confident in their chosen format and topic. In an online pandemic teaching context, it was also a valuable opportunity to connect with students one-on-one and learn more about their interests. I use a few strategies to minimize the workload of the proposal process, such as "project workshops": class time when my teaching assistant and I are available to discuss proposals and give feedback on drafts and outlines. Next time I will incorporate recommended length or size for common formats and detailed submission instructions on the assignment sheet to further reduce the labor involved in feedback.

The final project is graded according to a rubric. The rubric is a key aspect of this assignment and ensures consistency in grading across various formats. I make the rubric available early in the semester and encourage students to refer to it while they are working on their projects. Two-thirds of the grade is awarded for demonstrating a thorough and insightful understanding of chosen course concepts. One-sixth of the grade is awarded for use of format along with grammar, spelling, and citations. Another one-sixth is awarded for appropriate choice of topic, meant to reward students for following through on approved topics and reinforce that they must stick to course concepts and texts rather than doing outside research. This distribution of points frames format as a more or less transparent tool for communicating course content. Importantly, it limits the number of points that can be lost for clumsy uses of format that do not undermine communication of key concepts, such as awkward transitions in a podcast episode or poor video editing, for instance.

Final Project Rubric:

Suggestions for Incorporating Open Format Assignments in World Language Courses

While the examples we showcased here are from courses taught in the English language, open format assignments can be easily adapted for and provide several benefits to world language learning contexts. Not unlike other assessment decisions you make, your open format assignments will depend on your learning outcomes and course context.

In higher-level world language courses or seminars focused on literature or other content, or for language courses with a significant number of learning outcomes focused on culture rather than discrete language skills, the opportunities for open format engagement seem limitless. Very often, writing skills like genre or style do not need to be restricted to traditional text-based modalities. A comparative analysis of literature, for example, can be achieved multiple ways, as long as the comparison itself is paramount in your assessment. Even such skills as writing for coherence or cohesiveness or demonstrable vocabulary use need not be fettered to traditional modalities.

In lower-level language courses, it may be more challenging to engage in wholesale open format assessments because genre and mode are often prescribed within the learning objectives (e.g., students need to be able to write an email, and their practice should be done as authentically as possible within the appropriate mode - an email platform). However, the spirit of open assessment, that is offering students choice when appropriate, can easily be achieved on a smaller scale. You might offer a more controlled assignment than ours by limiting format options to those that make the most sense for your learning goals. Giving students even a small menu of choices gives students the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned in ways that appeal to them and play to their strengths.

We recognize that a rubric used for the evaluation of specific productive skills (i.e., speaking or writing) would necessarily be focused on the skill(s) being assessed. For example, some learning outcomes related to certain speaking skills may not be effectively assessed through written work (e.g., pronunciation, certain types of fluency, etc.). However, it might sometimes be possible to build in choice related to the format that speaking output can take: perhaps it doesn't matter to the essence of the learning outcome whether or not students engage in spontaneous speech, conduct an interview, or prepare a more traditional presentation. Giving students choice in how they demonstrate their speaking skills and allowing them to play to their strengths can mitigate the effects of anxiety which so often plagues many language learners (e.g., Horwitz, 2010). Spontaneous speech can also be anxiety-inducing for autistic language learners (Garrity et al., 2018) . In the case of writing, audience matters. But, you may find in revisiting your learning outcomes that students could choose from multiple formats within a single genre or rhetorical style on a given assignment. In process writing, for example, you might encourage students to choose mind-mapping applications to demonstrate their outlining stage as an alternative to traditional paper and pencil or word processing formats.

Conclusion

As noted throughout our narratives, open format assignments do present certain challenges. For example, some students may feel lost without examples or produce projects of very different lengths or sizes. We've suggested some ways to mitigate these issues, and have found that overall the benefits of these assignments greatly outweigh these limitations. Open format assignments are a highly flexible and accessible option appropriate for many learning contexts. We found that it made grading less tedious for us and required little familiarity on our part with specific software or technology. Most importantly, they provide significant benefits for students. For students, open format assignments:

1. Provide an opportunity to make use of existing technological knowledge/skills, or to learn a new technology they are interested in;

2. Allow students to avoid certain platforms or technologies entirely if uninteresting or inappropriate for them;

3. Encourage student autonomy and ownership over their work;

4. Encourage creative engagement with course material;

5. Accommodate different learning styles or preferences;

6. Create flexibility for students with disabilities;

7. Accommodate differential access to resources.

Acknowledgements

Caitlin would like to thank the students who joined the 5-week course and were so generous in sharing their work and evaluations of the assessment design, as well as Dr. Anna Pegler-Gordon who mentored the development of the course. Megan would like to thank her former teaching mentor Professor Kate Withy, who encouraged the development of the open-format assignment, and A.Y. Odedeyi, teaching assistant for Spring 2021 Ethics of Health Care.

References

CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved from http://udlguidelines.cast.org

Garrity, M., McGlowan, T., Chen, S., Wall, J., Alonso, M. R., Mia, L., Vivien, N., & Caldwell-Harris, C. (2018). Adults with autism discuss their experiences of foreign language learning: an exploration of the "different strategies" hypothesis. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/2144/37459

Haynes, J. (2017). 3 New Assessment Strategies for Testing in Higher Ed. , October 16, 2017. Retrieved from https://tophat.com/blog/assessment-strategies-testing-higher-ed/ .

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Assessing Outside the Box: the Open Format Assignment - The FLTMAG

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The COVID-19 pandemic has demanded unprecedented innovation and adaptation from instructors and students alike. Online learning has required many students to learn how to use new-to-them digital technologies like video editing, audio recording, and virtual presentation software. As we move back into more traditional classrooms, instructors may wish to incorporate students' newly-honed digital abilities into their pedagogy.

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The Mixxer for Online Language Exchanges

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The Mixxer for Online Language Exchanges

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Matthew G.

What this is about: This article provides an update on the online website known as The Mixxer, a social platform that allows language learners to find virtual language partners to chat with. (The original article about this platform can be found here: https://fltmag.com/connect-students-native-speakers-today/) The site provides of the same functions as Facebook including the ability to add someone as a friend and send chat messages.

Read this if: You are interested in incorporating online language exchanges in your own (a)synchronous courses. Students can either use the text messaging system on the website to have a written exchange with a partner or they can exchange Skype information to conduct voice chat.

Personal anecdote: I have incorporated The Mixxer into my own classes so students can practice speaking the language. It is a free alternative to TalkAbroad; therefore, it lacks a lot of the nice features of that platform. Furthermore, unlike with TalkAbroad, it can be difficult to find a language partner right away on The Mixxer, so students may have to reach out to several people before they can find someone to complete their exchange with. However, I would still highly recommend it.

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By Todd Bryant, Language Technology Specialist, Dickinson College.
The Mixxer website ( www.language-exchanges.org ) is a social networking site designed to help language learners find a language partner. The idea is that each user can provide practice and feedback in their native language in exchange for help with their target language. The site provides many of the same functions as Facebook including the ability to add someone as a friend and send chat messages. The difference is the search for other users is based on their native language(s) and the language(s) they are learning. For those looking to find a partner, my suggestion is to send messages to 5-10 other users mentioning days and times they are available and their Skype name. Native English and German speakers are in very high demand. Spanish, French, and Japanese speakers are also popular; however, speakers of less commonly taught languages such as Arabic, Russian, or Indonesian may find it difficult to find a partner.

The website also has a writing section. Unlike the speaking portion, learners do not need to find a partner. There is a link at the top of the site to "Write". I would recommend keeping it short, no more than two paragraphs, and remember to select the language before submitting. Native speakers of this language will then see the post and correct it.

In the spirit of exchange, writers are asked to correct any posts awaiting feedback in their native language. To make the writing submissions easier to correct, the site divides any posts into paragraphs and provides buttons below each paragraph to view corrections, mark as perfect, or add a correction. The vast majority of posts in every language receive feedback from native speakers. Of course, these are native speakers, but not instructors, so corrections are usually offered without explanation. For instructors interested in tracking students' submissions, I would suggest adding them as friends on the site. The student profile pages will then all be accessible under the My Friends tab. Each profile page includes a link to My Writing.

Updates

The site received several updates this academic year. The first is the replacement of the old messaging system with one that allows live-chat. Learners can now find potential partners, see who is online, and then start a chat. If users are offline, the chat is saved to an inbox and the recipient will receive an email notifying them.

We have also added a badge and "thank you" system. Learners receive badges for writing, correcting, sending messages and adding friends. User can also recommend or say "thank you" to other users by clicking the thumbs-up icon on their profile page. The badges are intended to give new users an idea of how to use the site and as a way of recognizing active users, especially those who complete selfless tasks such as correcting other people's writing.

Teachers

Teachers have possibilities to connect their students with language partners and have access to functions only available only to them. If you would like to become a teacher, send me an email at bryantt@dickinson.edu , let me know where you teach as well as the language(s) your students speak and are learning.

Students Find their own Partner

The first option is to let students find partners and Skype with them on their own. They create their own account, specify their languages, and send messages to potential partners. To keep track, they can either send the instructor an email, submit a blog post, or even a "Writing" if you would like native speakers to correct their summary of the exchange.

The advantage to this approach is that it does not require any class time and very little setup. On the negative side, be prepared for some students saying they were unable to contact their partner. With the possible exception of German learners, native English speakers are in extremely high demand. They can absolutely find a partner, but that does not mean they may not face a minor challenge or two. Internet connections are not always reliable around the world and some people may not meet at an agreed upon time. When assigning exchanges to students, we keep the deadlines quite open, perhaps 3-4 exchanges per month. If students send 10 messages to potential partners following the guidelines I mentioned earlier, they should not have any trouble finding a few reliable partners.

If you do decide to have students look for language partners on their own, send me an email . My address is on the front page of the site. I can give you a link that limits the search to users who have signed up for our events. These users are generally frequent users of the site, and therefore tend to be more reliable and experienced with having exchanges with students.

Class-to-Class Exchanges

The second option is to search for other teachers to organize a class-to-class exchange. There are some advantages with doing a class exchange. Students can work and learn together over time, form relationships, and collaborate on a joint project. We have found this arrangement to be the most difficult, however. Class hours, semester schedules, computer lab availability and varying course goals can make it challenging to maintain class-to-class partnerships over time.

If you do decide for a class-to-class exchange, send me an email, and I will make you a "teacher" on the site. You will then be able to search for other teachers and contact them via the site. You may want to check out UNI-Collaboration ( http://uni-collaboration.eu/ ) as well. Regardless of where you find a partner, try to be as flexible as possible with a very broad goal of increasing speaking and cross-cultural understanding. It will be easier to add specific course content and other aspects once you have successfully navigated a semester with your partner class.

Events - Exchanges during a Lab Hour

The third option is what we call an "Event". We use this option for most of our beginning and intermediate courses in French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. An event is simply a sign-up sheet posted on the Mixxer site for a language exchange at a given day and time. The event is then announced to users matching a specific language profile. For example, we may have a Spanish class interested in doing an exchange during their lab hour on Friday from 8:30-9:20. An event page is created describing the exchange along with the day and time and a Sign Up button. The instructor then sends an announcement, in this case to native Spanish speakers learning English, with a brief description a link to the event page with its Sign Up button. On the day of the exchange, the instructor then chats the native speakers on Skype to confirm their presence and assigns each to a student as they respond.

The advantage of doing events is the convenience and flexibility for the instructor. An event can be created quickly and announced a few days in advance. The disadvantage is students are unlikely to speak with the same person twice. A certain percentage, usually a little over a third, of native speakers who registered will also not attend. To address this problem, we limit the number of users who can sign up to about one and a half times the number of our students. Extra students or native speakers can be added into a three-person call. We have found it much easier to have two of our students and one native speaker in Skype call as opposed to the other way around.

If you decide to try an event, send me an email as well . I will walk you through the process of setting up and announcing your first event. Prior to the exchange, students should be comfortable logging into Skype (we use accounts for specifically this purpose), adding a contact and calling. For beginners and lower-intermediate learners, I would also recommend they come with at least 30 conversational questions to avoid those awkward silent pauses.

Conclusion

There are several ways to integrate language exchanges into you course. We have had success and difficulties with all three; however, in each case the students have gained valuable practice and overall greatly enjoyed their experiences. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me either via email at bryantt@dickinson.edu or @bryantt on Twitter. I am happy to share tips as well as stories of past successes and failures.

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By Todd Bryant, Language Technology Specialist, Dickinson College. The Mixxer website ( www.language-exchanges.org ) is a social networking site designed to help language learners find a language partner. The idea is that each user can provide practice and feedback in their native language in exchange for help with their target language.